Help - iTunes has lost my library!

I've just rebooted, chose "choose library" and all the bloody thing is showing are the songs I've purchased from iTunes (about 50) and none of the thousands of songs from my cd rips!! How can I get my old library back?? Is there anyway to find it on my back up (which is on the NAS where my master itunes library is stored?? Any help appreciated!!

I archive files I don't use frequently. To facilitate this I like a docking station. It lets you take a bare drive (= no enclosure, just the drive alone which is cheaper) and place them on top for temporary use and fast swapping. I have an older Voyageur from OWC. I have several bare drives for things such as home movies and photos which I don't need at an instant's notice all the time. I also have another bare drive for backup. The main drawback is it's too easy to not be diligent about attaching the drive for backup, particularly if you're used to time Machine doing your backups constantly during the day.
If I were shopping for an external drive with enclosure I would again look at getting the components separately. For example, Seagate backup drives are popular, but the last time I looked at sites with tons of reviews (such as Newegg) Seagate was rated badly. 10 years ago they were top of the line, so you have to stay on top of things. I would again look at the OWC line (prices okay and they specifically support Macs) and get an enclosure I liked, and then buy a drive I trusted (right now I have several 1TB Western Digital blues -- again from reading online ratings). We were in an Apple Store recently and pondered a Time Capsule but nobody could tell me what drive was inside so I kind of went off the idea in case it was a lemon.

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HELP, itunes has lost my music!!!!

Hey there, this is my first post soa any help is appreciated.
Today i opened up ITunes and I had no music??? no idea why, it was just not there. After this I then connected my ipod to my MAC and it said that my ipod was linked to another itunes. I tried to import my tunes off my ipod but can not do it as when i look on my ipod it does not show any music only the contact files etc. I also get an error message comes up every time i open itunes after connecting my ipod that says ' the itunes music libary file cannot be saved. an unknown error occured (-51).' then when you click ok and close the itunes window it the starts to bounce in the dock untill it is opened again and repeats the error message again.
Any ideas? where do I look for my music?

It sounds like your iTunes library file is corrupted. This file is located in (home)/Music/iTunes, it's called "iTunes Library" and contains the links to all your music files (but not the files themselves), your playlists, playcounts and ratings. Your music files most probably still remains on your hard drive (the default location is (home)/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music, but the library file that used to access it can't be used at the moment.
Try this to "revive" it:
- close iTunes
- go to (home)/Music/iTunes and drag "iTunes Library" and "iTunes Music Library.xml" file to the desktop.
- open iTunes, it will open to an empty library.
- now go File->import and select the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file from the desktop.
Does that restore your library?
If not, then you can download a 3rd party utility like iPod Access or senuti to transfer your library from your iPod to your computer (this can't be done using iTunes) and restore everything that way.
Let us know how it goes...
Sara.

PLEASE HELP-iTunes has lost my previous library

and i cant find it again! ive looked through the folder where the old libraries are but whenever i open them it just opens the same one. i have lost my most recent (and up to date) library. Any suggestions?? would be much appreciated

I archive files I don't use frequently. To facilitate this I like a docking station. It lets you take a bare drive (= no enclosure, just the drive alone which is cheaper) and place them on top for temporary use and fast swapping. I have an older Voyageur from OWC. I have several bare drives for things such as home movies and photos which I don't need at an instant's notice all the time. I also have another bare drive for backup. The main drawback is it's too easy to not be diligent about attaching the drive for backup, particularly if you're used to time Machine doing your backups constantly during the day.
If I were shopping for an external drive with enclosure I would again look at getting the components separately. For example, Seagate backup drives are popular, but the last time I looked at sites with tons of reviews (such as Newegg) Seagate was rated badly. 10 years ago they were top of the line, so you have to stay on top of things. I would again look at the OWC line (prices okay and they specifically support Macs) and get an enclosure I liked, and then buy a drive I trusted (right now I have several 1TB Western Digital blues -- again from reading online ratings). We were in an Apple Store recently and pondered a Time Capsule but nobody could tell me what drive was inside so I kind of went off the idea in case it was a lemon.

ITUNES has lost music lib

Hi
ITUNES has lost my music library. It's still on the disk in the same location it's always been and itunes is still pointing to that directory however no music is displayed.
Any help would be appreciated.
thanks
Windows XP Pro

Sounds like the iTunes Library .ITL file got damaged.
Just drag all your songs back into the library.
Your ratings and playcounts will all be gone, though. This same thing has happened to me once or twice. I back up the iTunes library files once or twice per week. When it happens I just drag the saved files over to the iTunes folder.
What are the iTunes library files?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93732

Itunes has lost all music file locations

Itunes has lost the location of ALL the music files in the library. I have not moved my files so I believe it may have happened when Itunes updated a few days ago. If this is the case, it is not very smart of the programmers! When I locate individual songs, Itunes only finds the other songs that are in the same subfolder, that leaves about 5000 files missing! I realise I can import my whole music folder but this will revert a lot of incorrect track information that I have manually edited over the months.
I would love some help as all the other posts seem to refer to slightly different problems and can never get around the problem of files being in various subfolders.
Thanks.

Hey Lhatcher1987,
That can definitely be stressful, but there's an article that can help you find the media you expected to appear in iTunes. I'd read through it and see if that helps you find the missing music:
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
All the best,
David

My itunes recently lost its library for no apparent reason.

My itunes recently lost its library for no apparent reason. The only library backup is an old one that does not reflect my current iPhone, and I do not want to have to re-input all the lyrics for the music I have imported in that time. Does itunes not automatically create a backup of its libraries? Is there anyway to copy this information off the iPhone?
I'm okay to simply drag all my music into a new itunes library, I don't want to go through the process of editing each individual file again, whether its cutting certain start/stop times, or inputting the lyrics for every single song...
Any ideas? I've tried googling a solution for hours. I even tried to system restore. This morning when opening Itunes, it simply told me that it could not locate a library, please select a library.

Empty/corrupt library after upgrade/crash
Hopefully it's not been too long since you last upgraded iTunes, in fact if you get an empty/incomplete library immediately after upgrading then with the following steps you shouldn't lose a thing or need to do any further housekeeping. In the Previous iTunes Libraries folder should be a number of dated iTunes Library files. Take the most recent of these and copy it into the iTunes folder. Rename iTunes Library.itl as iTunes Library (Corrupt).itl and then rename the restored file as iTunes Library.itl. Start iTunes. Should all be good, bar any recent additions to or deletions from your library.
See iTunes Folder Watch for a tool to catch up with any changes since the backup file was created.
When you get it all working make a backup!
Should you be in the unfortunate position where you are no longer able to access your original library, or a backup of it, then see Recover your iTunes library from your iPod or iOS device.
tt2

Please Help, iTunes has taken my right to play certain songs

Please Help, iTunes has taken my right to play certain songs.
These were free songs with coco-cola codes some time ago.
Now in Mtn Lion it has took the playing rights from me and locked them off!
Anybodys help on this subject is much appreciated...

Yes it worked,
Right-click in it > Show in Finder. Finally, right-click in that file > Get Info > Sharing & Permissions. See if you have got read permission,
Clicked through the Get Info > Sharing & Permissions and when I closed the window the song played again.
Not sure why but it worked for me!

Itunes has lost my purchase song list but all the albums are list as complete my albums. The ones i have purchased are tell me i have to buy them again. Not happy Itunes not Happy Apple

Itunes has lost my purchase song list but all the albums are list as complete my albums. The ones i have purchased are tell me i have to buy them again. Not happy Itunes not Happy Apple.
How do i fix it or does apple have to fix it on there end?

If the single songs are no longer available in Itunes, that would also explain why you aren't able to see your purchases.
If the songs are on your phone you can transfer purchases to iTunes app on your computer. You wouldn't be able to download them again though.

HT201210 my itunes has lost all my music, they are still on my ipod, can I copy them back ?

my itunes has lost all my music, they are still on my ipod, can I copy them back ?

''''' "My bookmarks from firefox were all on IE. " '''''
That wouldn't happen automatically, Firefox doesn't synchronize bookmarks with IE favorites.
Any chance you were using Google Bookmarks in Firefox? And then with the Google Toolbar not working any longer you just can't access your Google Bookmarks from within Firefox ??
GBookmarks (Google Bookmarks for Firefox) add-on <br />
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gbookmarks-google-bookmarks-fo/

ITunes has lost all my APP purchases and reset my library and playlists.

Well as above. I dont have any other username accounts. iTunes has had a breakdown and misplaced my entire library which is on my external hard drive, I havent lost the somgs just the location and all the metadata pertaining to it. Its a pain to reinstate it all but the most worrying part is that all of my APP purchases which I kept stored on iTunes are missing, which is a n awful lot of cash as they are mostly quite expensive music production and photography and film apps. How can I recover my metadata for iTunes and how do I restore all my APP purchases?

Ok I have trouble shooted the problem myself and found the culprit. For whatever reason iTunes had created a n entire different library next to my usual libray and was referring to that!? I removed it and iTunes and the app purchases are back to normal. Phew!

ITunes has lost all my playlists!

...and Party Shuffle is missing as well (I presume since it has no playlists from which to shuffle as the pre-loaded pl's are also missing) but all the actual music seems to be intact. I think this happened after the second-to-last update- 7.4.3 has given me no problems other than it did not help iTunes restore my lists nor did it help me figure out how to do so. My iPod (5thG Video) is working fine and I can go indefinitely w/out syncing it- don't want to lose all my work on that as well- but if I can't convince iTunes that I have playlists, can it pull all that stuff off my iPod if necessary? I never find what I'm really looking for when I try to use the manual or articles....
TIA anyone with an idea about this!

I don't know if you've tried using the old library file - every time itunes is upgraded it saves the old library file in a separate folder. Maybe the new file got corrupted somehow? Although if you upgraded after you lost your playlists this might not work. The itunes playlists are saved in the library file, unless you exported them or recently made a CD backup of your itunes library. You can try this if you haven't already:
1. Close itunes and go into the itunes folder (usually my music>itunes) and look for the 'itunes library.itl' file. Move this onto your desktop. Leave the 'itunes music library.xml' file where it is.
2. Also in the itunes folder you should see a 'previous itunes libraries' folder - open this. You might only see one file; if you see more than one use the file from the date you noticed the problem. Copy this file into the itunes folder to replace the one you just moved, then change the name to just 'itunes library' or 'itunes library.itl'.
3. Try opening itunes now - you should see everything the way it was at the time of upgrading, but if itunes only saves the most recent library you may have lost the playlists ....:(
If there is another way to restore playlists I haven't found it yet - I lost my playlists about a month ago because I didn't know how the library file worked, and I was going between 7.4.3 and 7.3.2 and I must have overwritten the old library file. After that I found on the apple website how to do it correctly.
If that didn't work and you have a disc backup of your itunes you can try opening the contents of the discs in windows so you can see what files are on there, and look for a copy of your old library file and copy that into the itunes folder in step #2 instead. But don't restore from the backup discs in itunes if your music is still showing up - when I tried that I got duplicates of whatever music files were on the discs.
There is also a program called copytrans that you can use to copy the music and supposedly your playlists off your ipod back onto your computer, but I didn't have any luck with that; again I just got duplicates of my song files and not the playlists themselves. And the free version only does 100 songs at a time.
If I've learned anything from this experience, it's to save a copy of the library file before doing any updates because it's a lot easier than all this copying stuff - you just go under File>Export Library and save the file somewhere. Then if you have any problems you can just import that file and all your playlists will be restored.

ITunes has 'lost' Artist info for purposes of viewing/sorting

PLEASE HELP!! Not sure if it has anything to do with iTunes 8 or the new Genius function, however my iTunes library has 'lost' several artists but only when viewing or searching under the 'Artist' listing....the music is all still there but can only can be found when searching under 'Albums' or 'Genre'............Extremely frustrating!!
In addition, while my 60GB iPod Classic (2005) still shows all the information under 'Artist', my brand new 120GB Classic (which has the Genius function pre-installed) is having the exact same issue as my iTunes...has anyone else come across the issue or have any suggestions?
Many thanks!

...well that was a bloody useful effort.

Itunes has lost all music and no files located on laptop apart from one.

Hi,
We have recently downloaded all our CDs into itunes to clear them out and have them successfully on our devices. I went to reorganise my music and change things and discovered that my music library looks like it is there but says cannot locate file. I have tried to search for the albums but they are nowhere. There is my most recent download and I can search for that and it plays but that is all. Please help...we no longer have the albums and have purchased a lot through itunes.
Thanks.

Hey Lhatcher1987,
That can definitely be stressful, but there's an article that can help you find the media you expected to appear in iTunes. I'd read through it and see if that helps you find the missing music:
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
All the best,
David

Please HELP, "iTunes has stopped working" error after connecting iPod video

People please help me out! I have a Razer Blade gaming laptop with Windows 8 64bit.
I have an iPhone 5, iPad 2 and an iPod video (80GB). I had some weeks from not connecting the iPod to my computer, but this morning that I did so I can upload some new music to it, iTunes just crash, I get the "iTunes has stopped working" error message when I connect the iPod video. I do not have this problem with either the iPhone 5 or the iPad 2, when I connect these, iTunes works fine, once I connect the iPod, then all goes down
Procedures that I already tried and that were unsuccessful to solve the problem:
Uninstall Quicktime
Uninstall iTunes and reinstall
Reset the iPod (several times)
Delete TEMP files on computer
Restart the computer (several times)
Use a different cable and a different USB port
The iPod is working fine, if I plug it to my car stereo or if I use it with headphones it works great, no problems nor errors. My computer also identify the iPod as a hard disk, no error messages from Windows, it is just the freakin' iTunes that freezes everytime that I plug the iPod
PLEASE HELP ME OUT, I've searched forums on this particular issue but with no luck.
Thanks very much!

It is only when I attempt to add a song to my iPod once plugged in that I receive the error "Itunes has stopped working" and forces me to exit the program, without the song being successfully transferred.
Do you have the "Convert to 128 kbps AAC" preference enabled for syncing to the iPod, laur?
If so, it's quite plausible that you've got the iTunes 10.1.0.54 bug and we need to get you updated to 10.0.1.56 as per the following document:
[iTunes 10.1 for Windows: iTunes may stop working and need to quit while importing or syncing audio|http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3591]

Help "iTunes has encountered a problem and needs to close..."

I have windows XP with service pack 2 installed and downloaded iTunes from the apple website, when i click on the iTunes icon on the desk top or from the itunes folder it will not open, I get the following error "iTunes has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience" then gives you the option to send error report or don't send. I have already uninstalled and reinstalled it several times and it keeps doing the same thing. Anybody know what I need to do to get it to work???

Hi -
I apologize for waiting a couple of days to post - I got sidetracked. Anyway, my "fix" involved a lot of trial and error and stumbling around in the dark, but it does seem to have worked so far. Hopefully I can put together a coherent enough sequence of events to help you out.
Preface: While you're doing these steps, disable your antiviral/spyware programs just to make sure that's eliminated as a source of problems.
1) Using the Add/Remove Programs function, uninstall ITunes, Quicktime and any IPod software.
2) Download the Windows Installer Cleaup utility from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301
Install this on your computer. As I understand it, this is basically a program that goes one level deeper to remove software from your computer. Once it's installed, open it and use it to remove anything involving ITunes, Quicktime and IPod.
3) Unfortunately, you still probably haven't removed all the problem traces of Quicktime from your computer. To edit your registry, select "Run" from the Start menu and type "regedit" or "regedt32" in the box. A window should open with the registry editor. There will be a really long list of files on the left side. Scroll down about 2/3 of the way and you'll see a series of folders with "Quicktime" in the name. Right-click on each of these and select "delete." Do the same for "ITunes" and "IPod" folders in this alphabetical list.
Not done yet.
Under the "Edit" menu, select "Find." Do a search on "Quicktime" - unfortunately there is no "find all" function. So the first file with "Quicktime" will come up; right-click and delete it. Press F3 to find another file and delete - repeat until you've gotten rid of all the Quicktime files. Then search on "ITunes" and do the same process; finally do the same for "IPod." This will take some time.
**Warning: Be very careful not to accidentally delete files not marked with Quicktime, IPod or ITunes. Messing around with the registry is serious stuff that a non-computer expert such as myself should probably not be doing .
4) Finally, once you've gotten rid of everything Quicktime, ITunes or IPod-related, download the latest versions of Quicktime and ITunes (separately). Install Quicktime first, then install ITunes.
Note: You have to have adminstrator access on your computer to edit the registry.
Hope this helps...
-Andrew

Help - iTunes has lost my library!

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